Viagra Miscue: Dose Of Reality

First, we heard about a Connecticut inmate with a rare blood disorder who is bankrupting the University of Connecticut Health Center's budget with a pharmacy bill exceeding $1 million.

Then, this week, we learn that in New York, an auditor's report identified 198 sex offenders there receiving Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their release.

If that doesn't get a rise out of you ...

As a result of the New York miscues, states across the country are scrambling to assess their Medicaid records for coverage of those with erectile dysfunction.

Connecticut is on the case, too. The state Department of Social Services will review its Medicaid clients who are covered for Viagra or similar prescriptions and cross-check it with the state's registered sex offender rolls. ``We're setting the wheels in motion,'' said spokesman David Dearborn.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a Washington-based federal agency, is letting states know that they can inject a little common sense into this issue: They do not have to pay for a convicted rapist's or sex offender's Viagra supplements.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said this week that states already have the latitude to determine if a prescription is not suitable for a patient.

(Just so there's no further mishaps, states also shouldn't feel obligated to pick up the bar tab for alcoholics either.)

While this Viagra-for-sex-offenders scenario is monologue fodder for the late night talkies -- OK, columnists too -- it's serious business. Some of these offenders are pedophiles who are regularly ingesting prescriptions that would make them more prone to harm again.

Call it public policy run amok. We put on the books a directive with the unforeseen consequence of allowing tax dollars to pay for the erectile dysfunction medication of sex offenders. Whew!

A controversial 1998 federal edict allowing Medicaid to be applied to Viagra inadvertently opened the door.

When all the states' audits are done, we could find that the government's complicity in erecting the desires of the men least likely to control their libido is costing millions. Florida, for example, is estimating that Medicaid has paid $93,000 in the past four years to provide Viagra to 218 sex offenders.

The Viagra story and the one about the Connecticut inmate with the costly blood disorder aren't exactly generating sympathy for the people who work in prison reform and rehabilitation. It's just reinforcing the notion that we're comforting the bad guys.

``When I heard about this, it made me go `ouch,''' said Maureen Price, executive director of Community Partners in Action, which provides re-entry programs for inmates coming out of jail, ``because I know people will latch onto this and use it as an opportunity to critique the system on a broader basis, and say `there we go again, coddling inmates.'''

The situations in Connecticut and New York provide befuddling contrasts. Connecticut is dealing with a life-threatening situation involving a career criminal in his 30s, with a heroin habit and a blood disease. Failure to treat him could kill him. Not only does the state have to develop strategies for his health care, it also has to design plans to keep him from coming back to prison and further draining its medical services.

New York's case is more about providing gratification, not medication. Before it's all over, we may find that society's most deviant have been more pleasured than punished.

Stan Simpson's column appears Wednesdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at ssimpson@courant.com.